First, the size of a mini black hole as reported by many scientists working on the project would be on the subatomic size, think protons and neutrons.

Second, these mini black holes are unstable. As proposed by Stephen Hawking, (a truly great man ), these black holes would emit radiation rather that "gobble everything up." Almost as soon as they were created these black holes would emit enough radiation that they destroy themselves.

John4:20

They're not trying to make black holes, the sole purpose of the experiment is to finally detect higgs-bosun particles, which are believed to be the particles which are responsible for giving the universe mass. This whole experiment may finally bring to light all the questions that science has regarding the big bang and it's inception. The amazing thing is that we can only actually detect 4% of the universe. That means 96% of the universe is comprised of black matter and black energy. I wonder what is in that 96%......

My friend is worried about a "Big Bang" that might be caused by it. He's afraid it'll explode. I have no idea how to yell at him and call him stupid while being smart. Any ideas?

No actual "Big Bang" will occur. The theoretical masses and energies needed for the original big bang were IMMENSE!!! According to big bang theorists everything in the universe, everything that you can look at, touch, every atom, everything... was compacted in a single infinitesimally small speck. Nothing the scientists are going to do tomorrow will even come close to this amount of mass and density.

My friend is worried about a "Big Bang" that might be caused by it. He's afraid it'll explode. I have no idea how to yell at him and call him stupid while being smart. Any ideas?

No actual "Big Bang" will occur. The theoretical masses and energies needed for the original big bang were IMMENSE!!! According to big bang theorists everything in the universe, everything that you can look at, touch, every atom, everything... was compacted in a single infinitesimally small speck. Nothing the scientists are going to do tomorrow will even come close to this amount of mass and density.

That's exactly what I told him, so I know I'm on the right track. He completely ignored the "black holes will consume the earth" aspect for some reason.

My friend is worried about a "Big Bang" that might be caused by it. He's afraid it'll explode. I have no idea how to yell at him and call him stupid while being smart. Any ideas?

No actual "Big Bang" will occur. The theoretical masses and energies needed for the original big bang were IMMENSE!!! According to big bang theorists everything in the universe, everything that you can look at, touch, every atom, everything... was compacted in a single infinitesimally small speck. Nothing the scientists are going to do tomorrow will even come close to this amount of mass and density.

That's exactly what I told him, so I know I'm on the right track. He completely ignored the "black holes will consume the earth" aspect for some reason.

Plus, explain to him that if any black hole were created it would be subatomic and would disappear almost instantly, according to the brilliant mind of Stephen Hawking that is.

Best Case: The Large Hadron Colliders' ALICE experiment successfully creates quark-gluon plasma, a substance theorized to have existed just milliseconds after the Big Bang. By generating temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than the sun, scientists hope to watch as this particle goo cools and expands into the particles that we know. That could help scientists answer why protons and neutrons weigh 100 times more than the quarks they're made of.

Worst Case: Scientists inadvertently make a micro black hole, and the earth is quickly erased from existence. Just kidding: scientists at CERN and elsewhere have ruled out the possibility that the LHC will create any kind of doomsday scenario. The black holes that the LHC could theoretically create don't even have enough energy to light up a light bulb. On the other hand, the U.K.'s Astronomer Royal put the odds of destroying the world at 1 in 50 million (which puts it in the realm of possibilities but still not as likely as hitting the lottery).

String Theory

Best Case: Scientists detect certain types of supersymmetric particles, aka sparticles, which physicist Michio Kaku calls, "signals from the 11th dimension." This would show that string theorists have been on the right path and that the universe really is made up of the four dimensions we experience and then seven others that unite the forces of nature.

Worst Case: String theory's basic assumptions are violated. The LHC will be the first particle accelerator capable of allowing scientists to study W bosons, the elementary particle responsible for the weak force. If they don't scatter in certain ways, it'll be back to the drawing board for a generation of string theorists, or as one physicist told New Scientist, "If we see these violations, people will start working very feverishly on some sort of alternative that will produce these violations."

The "Our Universe Is Not Alone" Theory

Best Case: If scientists find a long-lived gluino, the postulated supersymmetric partner of the gluon, one group of scientists argues that it can be seen as a "messenger from the multiverse" and will lend support to the theory that our universe is just one of many. (Keep in mind though: not everyone is buying this interpretation.)

Worst Case: Our universe really is alone. Or even worse: it's lonely.

The Dark Matter of the Universe Theory

Best Case: Astrophysicists currently believe that 96 percent of the universe is made up of dark matter and energy that we can't see and can barely detect. Dark matter alone is estimated to compose 26 percent of the universe, only we have no idea what it's made of. It has been postulated that the neutralino is the best candidate for dark matter. Many physicists hope that the neutralino -- which, if it exists, will be relatively easy to produce -- will make an appearance in the debris inside the CMS or Atlas detectors, confirming the theory of dark matter.

Worst Case: Proudly, physicists announce that they've observed dark matter's unmistakable signature inside one of the LHC's detectors. But over the next few weeks, the reality sinks in that they've actually made a measurement mistake. Some physicists don't think that the LHC will be precise enough to measure any dark matter that it's lucky enough to create.

The Standard Model of Particle Physics

Best Case: With the standard model so well elucidated, perhaps a curveball is in order. Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance notes, "There is almost a guarantee that the Higgs exists, or at least some sort of Higgs-like particle," so perhaps the best scenario would be finding the Higgs-like particle rather than the Higgs itself. That wouldn't be such a radical break from the model such that all previous work is too highly devalued, and at the same time it could open new physics frontiers.

Worst Case: The Higgs boson -- the long-postulated particle that is supposed to give mass to particles -- is finally confirmed. Sure, discovering the Higgs at the LHC would be neat, but it would basically just confirm a lot of what physicists already know, without really pushing the science: Boring. Some scientists have even said that their worst case scenario for the entire collider project would be finding the Higgs and just the Higgs.

Logged

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons. --Michael Shermer

The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an absurd practice. --Sir James George Frazer

Particle physics is complicated. Tweets are not. So, naturally, answering your questions about the Large Hadron Collider in Twitter format, i.e. 140 characters or less, could help you understand some physics.

Q: WTF is a Large Hadron Collider?A: Hadrons are the parent family for protons and neutrons. The collider will smash protons together to see what they're made of.

Q: What are ATLAS and CMS and all these other acronyms?A: They are particle detectors. ATLAS and CMS are the big ones. Each detector is designed to carry out a set of experiments.

Q: How does the Large Hadron Collider work?A: It smashes particles moving at near the speed of light together. Then, detectors look for very rare particles in the wreckage.

Q: Is smashing things together to look for progressively smaller and rarer particles really how particle physics is done?A: More or less: yes. Theoretical physicists work out the math. The experiments get run to see whose math matches the world.

Q: Who paid for the Large Hadron Collider?A: You did! But not nearly as much as your European cousins. The US contribution stands at $531 million. Total cost: $10 billion.

Q: How does a particle detector work?A: They work like digital cameras with 150 megapixels taking snapshots 600 million times a second! Then algorithms look for interesting stuff.

Q: Is there an end 'product/goal' that the average Joe will eventually see from these experiments? ie:teleportation?A: Not directly, but confirmation that physicists understand the universe would be nice. And you never know. The engineering can lead to other things.

Q: When you smash particles at nearly the speed of light isn't that going to release a lot of energy?A: Yes. The highest-energy collisions will reach 14 trillion electron volts.

Q: How many particles are actually colliding?A: Hacked Wikipedia: The beam pipes contain 1.0×10-9 grams of hydrogen, whichwould fill the volume of one grain of fine sand.

Q: Is the Large Hadron Collider a threat to human civilization and the existence of the Earth?A: No. Einstein's relativity says it's impossible. And, just in case, studies of highly-energetic cosmic rays hitting earth rule it out, too.

Logged

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons. --Michael Shermer

The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an absurd practice. --Sir James George Frazer

My friend is worried about a "Big Bang" that might be caused by it. He's afraid it'll explode. I have no idea how to yell at him and call him stupid while being smart. Any ideas?

If your friend is afraid of the LHC experiments, then he should be constantly living in fear. Collisions of this energy and higher happen in nature every day. The universe has already run "experiments" of this kind so many times it has to be shown in scientific notion and I forget what order of magnitude it gets into.

It is interesting to think about. What would it be like if a black hole was created? Some say that if the mini-black holes didn't evaporate as Hawkings says they should, that they would take thousands of years to engulf the earth. Even those that disagree say it could take years or decades to finish the job.

Organized religion is simply tribalism with a side order of philosophical wankery, and occasionally a baseball bat to smash the kneecaps of anyone who doesn't show proper deference to the tribe's chosen totem.